


Louder Than Bells

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-16
Updated: 2010-03-16
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:00:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam and Dean try to keep it together, stop an apocalypse, and worry about saying "yes," while Castiel's secrets start to fall out and Michael messes with Dean's head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Louder Than Bells

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Set weeks after 5x14. Title from Florence + The Machine. Research sources are [Monstropedia](http://www.monstropedia.org) plus various random sites. Also, we still love google. Not in continuity with any of my other Dean/Castiel fics because writing Castiel is like playing Calvinball. Thank you to smilla02 for the beta and for helping me zero in on the story I wanted to tell.

Vines crawled up the walls of the farmhouse, eating away at it from the outside in. Not that this particularly worried Dean, although a part of his brain thought that under normal circumstances, he might be concerned about the way the house listed to the east, but he wasn't. The faint drone of bees and the scent of leaves and the way the sun hit his legs, warming the denim as he sat on the porch, kind of made it seem hard to get worked up about anything. He put his boots up on the railing and squinted against the sun that hit just the right angle to flood the porch. Then he reached for the iced tea on the small wooden table at his side, glass wet with condensation and ice half-melted. It even had lemon slices floating in it, no sugar. His palms and fingers grew damp from handling the glass, cold against the heat of the day. Dean transferred the glass to his other hand and wiped his hand against his gray t-shirt, staining it dark.

His mind flickered over the way that looked like bloodstains, but there were no monsters here, no blood. The wind rustled through the vines and the bees were far enough off not to be a worry any more than the way the house leaned.

He swallowed down the iced tea in deep gulps.

"Hello, Dean."

One second, Castiel hadn't been there and now, he was. Just like that. He barely even cast a shadow. His trenchcoat truly seemed ridiculous in the heat.

"Oh, I get it." Dean put down the glass and wiped his hand on his jeans. "This is one of those dream visits. You have a message?"

Castiel turned away from gazing across the fields towards Dean and a slow, amused smile spread over his face. "Yes, I do, but you don't seem to want to listen."

"Uh, okay, since when I have a not listened to you?" Dean ran his tongue over his lower lip, tasting the remains of bitter lemon.

"You hear the words, but you aren't accepting them." Castiel moved until he stood in front of Dean, blocking the sun. "I have to keep trying, though." The sun behind him intensified the way his face fell into shadow, his eyes still bright.

"Trying what, Cas? What're you talking about?" Dean's skin prickled.

"Dean," Castiel said, his voice soft, softer than Dean had ever heard Castiel speak, and his tone held all the patience of someone talking with a beloved, badly behaved child who might listen to reason. "You know who you are speaking to?"

It took a few heartbeats, while Dean's mind went to a strange blank space as he groped to put it together. He looked at Castiel's face, and then was on his feet.

"Fuck." He reached for a shotgun he already knew wasn't there, and even if this were real, it wouldn't be any help anyway. It was only instinct. His fingers clenched around nothing. "You're in my dreams now?"

"I can't find you. Castiel made sure of that, with his sigils. He was always smart. We never noticed him enough, not until it was too late. In the meantime, I can reach you this way." Castiel -- no, not Castiel, _Michael_ , reached out a hand towards Dean's head, as if he was going to touch the side of his face, and Dean jerked back a step. "You have nothing to fear from me," Michael said, with Castiel's voice, and holding himself almost the same way, although there was something more fluid about Michael, and more frightening.

It reminded Dean a little of Castiel when they'd first met, only powered up a few thousand more watts. There were moments lately when Castiel came across with a little of that, but more of them where even if he was doing the same angel-charged glare of _it's smiting time_ , he was just Castiel and Dean didn't know if it was his power waning or he'd gotten used to it.

"The hell I don't," Dean said.

"Why would I harm you? I need you." Michael moved closer, and even though Castiel was shorter than Dean, he felt crowded, closed in. He didn't move, wouldn't give the son of a bitch the satisfaction of seeing him flinch away again.

"I'm not saying yes," Dean said, sweat tickling down his back. "Give it up."

Michael's hand moved. Dean tensed and Michael held the gesture mid-air, fingers curled. "I heard you pray. I can help you. I can make it a certainty that Sam will never have to say yes to my brother, and I can free him from Azazel's taint. I can save him, make sure he's safe, I can end the floods and the burning and the dying and the fear." His palm was against Dean's face now, had settled there before Dean knew it, and it felt all right. It shouldn't have, but it did. Warm and dry and gentle, with Castiel's long fingers. "You've been fighting a long time, and you're tired. It can be over, finally. That emptiness inside you? It's false." Michael leaned in, the edges of the coat brushing Dean's hips. It was as if Michael would enfold him, as if the coat were a set of wings. "You aren't empty, Dean. You're a righteous man, but all the battling on through the storm has worn you down and left you feeling empty, helpless to stop what's happening. But, Dean." He caught Dean's gaze, and then he looked nothing at all like Castiel. Dean wondered why he'd seen any resemblance at all. "We can stop it. You and I, together."

The sound of bees, which Dean had stopped registering, grew preternaturally loud and all his muscles tensed. It was as if the hum were in his own body, running through his veins.

"Why --" Dean found he couldn't swallow easily. "Why him, why're you using him?"

"I thought this would make it easier for you, make me friendlier to you. There are other forms I could choose that would suit that purpose but I think this one, right now, is what you wanted to see. Isn't it?" Michael tilted his head to one side, thumb sliding along Dean's jaw. "I can save him too. Protect him from the wrath of heaven when we've won, make sure he isn't punished, give him immunity." His thumb traced over Dean's lower lip, barely touching, while Dean wondered why he hadn't pushed him away yet. The answer was beneath his skin, in the hum of the bees, in the parts of his brain where he kept a lot of the things he hadn't wanted to look at too closely, ever since Castiel pulled him out of Hell. "You've wanted to know what he tastes like," Michael said, his voice holding almost a note of pleading, as if he pitied Dean and hoped Dean would let him make it all better, "unwilling to do anything about it, but you wonder all the same."

"I...I don't --" Shit, _shit_ , he was actually growing hard, letting himself get played easy as ever even though he was done with that, done being played. Dean had long since pitched the idea of _only a dream_. But this, this wasn't real, Michael was kicking around within the confines of Dean's head, and Dean still didn't push him away. Michael wasn't lying or bending the truth, he was seeing all the way into Dean and out the other side.

Michael had both hands on either side of Dean's face now, pressing his forehead to Dean's. "Think of the lives we could save," Michael whispered. "How strong we'd be."

His mouth was over Dean's, and for a moment, Dean gave in, opened up and let his tongue slide in over Castiel's, let himself give in because he _wanted_ this. His fingers grabbed at the lapels of the raincoat before Dean's brain acknowledged what he was tasting wasn't Castiel, it was Michael. Not that Dean had any way of knowing how Castiel tasted because, well, it wasn't as if he'd kissed Castiel before so what did he know, and this wasn't really happening anyway, but he'd been close to Cas even if they weren't doing, well, _this_ , and the scent was wrong and his movements and the way the fingers gripped Dean's arm.

Dean shoved hard and Michael stumbled back. "No," Dean said. "You're not _him_."

Michael recovered his balance, feet splayed on the old boards, and gave Dean a mournful steady gaze, head inclined a fraction.

A jolt of fury went through him at what Michael was using, how he was using it, and maybe at himself, because Dean had let him.

"Get the fuck out of my head," Dean said.

* * *

He woke in his bed in the motel room off route 70 near Topeka. The pale glow of the motel sign cut the darkness into strips of pale blue and yellow. Sam was a quiet mass in the other bed, buried under the blankets.

Dean sat up and scrubbed his hands over his face, digging his fingers into his hair that was too short to grab properly. He took a few deep breaths, the taste of Michael still on his tongue, like the aftermath of touching a light socket by accident, along with the hint of lemon and the shape of three letters.

Without bothering with a light, he made his way into the bathroom and splashed ice-cold water on his face. The memory of Michael snagged in his mind, his slow, amused, unfamiliar smile, his gesture when he'd paused, fingers curled.

Turning off the water, Dean sat down with his back against the tub, bare feet against the cold tiles. He put his head down on his knees, then got up and went back out into the room and got his cell out of his bag. Sitting on the edge of his bed, Dean stared at the display, finger poised over the speed-dial button.

Then he closed the phone, but left it on the bedside table when he lay down on his side on top of the covers. Dean tugged the bedspread half over himself.

He watched his brother sleep for a while. Eventually his heart stopped racing.

* * *

They packed up the next morning, after Bobby called about a string of drownings in a town two states over. No way of knowing if it was the work of a horseman until they checked it out, but Dean's thumb slid over his cell phone's keypad before he tucked it away into his jacket pocket.

Sam paused with a couple of mis-matched socks in his hand. He studied them, frowning like stopping the apocalypse would be a breeze if he could only figure out how to keep his socks from getting mixed up. Then his glance flicked to Dean, the lines on his forehead deepening.

"Hey," Sam said. "You slept on top of the covers last night."

"So?" Dean rolled a t-shirt and put it in his duffel, then reached for another one.

"So, after you got back from...when you first got back, you were sleeping in your clothes a lot, on top of the covers. You'd stopped doing that." Sam tucked the socks in on each other and threw them into his bag. "Until now."

"I didn't sleep in my clothes," Dean said. "And you can say it, Sam. When I got from back from Hell."

Sam swallowed before he went on. "You slept on top of the covers. Actually, no, scratch that." Sam stepped away from his packing, moving towards Dean, and there was no escaping six-feet plus of Sam once he'd decided something was up. "You didn't even _sleep_ , did you?"

"No." Dean sat down on the bed, his hand resting on the bag, thinking he could lie back right now and sleep for about four hours. He stared down at the red line of a healing cut below his index finger, then raised his head to meet Sam's eyes.

"What's going on, Dean?" Sam said softly.

Dean clenched his fingers around the duffel bag handle, then let go. "Michael. The bastard's been dream-walking in my head."

"Like Lucifer." Sam sat down next to him, and Dean felt the bed give under the added weight.

"From what you told me, yeah."

Knotting his hands together, Sam bowed his head, glancing at Dean sideways. "Did he show up as someone you knew?"

Dean nodded.

"Who was it?"

"He--" Dean rubbed his palm against his jeans. "It doesn't matter. The sonofabitch was in my head and he said shit that..." Dean shut his eyes for a second, the slow, wrong smile on Castiel's face rising from the back of his mind. He opened his eyes and saw his brother waiting and staying still, as if he'd wait for a long time, which was how Sam could get -- immovable and more solid than anything else around. More solid than Dean felt to himself, lately. (For a while, Sam hadn't seemed that way, and Dean had missed it.) It was on Dean's tongue to say, you know what, forget it, let's go get breakfast. His job to make things right, not put all that weight on Sam. But a lot was different now. "He said he could save you, he said he and I could end all of this, stop all the dying and the fighting, he knew how tired I was and I'm scared, Sam. I'm scared I might say _yes._ "

"Yeah," said Sam. "Me too."

They sat in silence for a minute.

"We're screwed," Dean said.

"Pretty much." Sam's mouth quirked into a lopsided smile. "We might as well go have breakfast."

* * *

The drownings turned out to be your ordinary, average, everyday Nix. Actually, two of them, which was what made the hunt a little more than routine, although not by much, but after dealing with actual _Satan_ , Dean had started to wonder if they'd get a monster hunt that was an actual challenge ever again. Yeah, he knew better than to issue a challenge like that to the universe, and almost wasn't even surprised when the second Nix slammed into the rowboat, knocking Sam off his feet and knocking Dean head first into the water.

After the rush of his impact with the lake faded from his ears, he heard a muffled gunshot, figured that was Sam taking care of the first Nix on the other side of the boat. His own shotgun was gone, he'd lost his grip on it when he hit the water. Dean rotated his body and pushed for the surface, stopped short when something slippery curled around his ankle, tightening. Torn to pieces by hellhounds, forty years in Hell, Dean wasn't about to let himself get taken out by a mother-fucking Nix. He fought, kicking hard, could barely see in the murky, cold water, a weight pressing against his lungs, squeezing.

He heard the dull sound of a splash, and then a large shape moved by him. There was a hard tug on his leg, and the slippery thing slid off his ankle while a thin dark cloud rose through the water. An arm gripped him across his chest -- _Sam_ \-- and pulled him towards the surface while Dean kicked, his strength nearly gone. They broke into air, both of them gulping deep breaths while Sam grabbed the belt loops on the back of Dean's jeans and hauled him halfway into the rowboat. There was a clatter as Sam threw in the knife, then pulled himself into the boat next to Dean.

A thin stream of watery green fluid ran off the knife, pooling in the bottom of the aluminum boat.

"You got the other one?" Dean gasped out, as Sam nodded, wet hair bedraggled, sticking to his forehead. Reaching out, Dean pulled a piece of lake weed from his brother's shirt and threw it overboard. "Nice work."

"Next time, bend your knees when you're standing up in a rowboat, jackass."

Despite the way he had started to shiver, a strange feeling of contentment -- of rightness -- settled over Dean. It had been a while since he'd felt that way.

But that night, he couldn't sleep.

* * *

"Maybe you should call Cas," Sam said, eyeing Dean as they drank coffee and waited for their order in the town's one diner. "Talk to him about Michael."

"No, it's okay, Sam. Really." He resisted the urge to rub at his eyelids with his fingers. Stupid, since it didn't matter anyway, Sam already saw the dark circles, was probably noticing how Dean was tense like a wire stretched to its limits, ready to snap.

"Michael hasn't been back, has he?"

"No, he hasn't. I'll tell you, I swear, I'll tell you if he is, all right?"

"Okay, okay."

Inside his head, the bees hummed and the heat of the sun seeped into his limbs, while he sat in a diner where the heat only worked so-so and the sky outside was flat and gray.

* * *

In a small town south of Portland, OR, people kept dying or getting injured, in traffic accidents at intersections, in supermarkets at the check-out line where witnesses said fights broke out, or at the DMV, along with a good number of injuries to delivery people and mailmen.

"I dunno." Sam chewed his lower lip as they studied the map they'd taped to the wall of their motel room, push-pins marking the locations of all the attacks, color-coded string tied between them. "This is looking less like _our_ kind of business and looking more like angel business."

"You think?" Dean tried to sound skeptical. "Nah. Sammy, we can take this. It's only some kind of thing that...alters people's behavior."

"You mean like War and Famine did?"

"We can handle it." He reached for the cup of coffee left on the table and gulped down the dregs of it, luke-warm.

"I think we should call Cas."

"We don't need to. We can do this..." Dean crushed the coffee cup in his grip. He'd almost said _we can do this without him_ and what stopped him was a sudden tightening in his stomach, that maybe someday they would have to. For a couple of decades on the road, Dean had managed fine without a conflicted angel on his shoulder, going up against shit at least as bad as the apocalypse. What was different now?

"You haven't slept in a week, Dean."

"I did. I slept a few hours while you were driving."

Sam huffed out a breath, but stopped arguing.

* * *

After Famine, Castiel had zapped them with another set of sigils. "They're probably not powerful enough to stop a horseman's influence," he'd said, after touching each of their collarbones. "But it will slow it down, and fend off other things."

Dean had felt the burn inside of him, under his skin, just like the first time when Castiel had done that to their ribs. Castiel chose to apply it to Dean on the side that didn't bear his hand-print scar. Whether that was purposeful or not, Dean wasn't sure.

The spot itched as he and Sam closed in on the man who was on every surveillance tape, seemed to be at every incident. Whatever was making people go bugnuts, it wasn't affecting Sam and Dean.

But they walked into the trap like a couple of noobs.

Twelve demons, their eyes black, stood in a circle around them in the empty warehouse while the leader, slim and dark-haired in a dark, impeccably tailored suit, tsked his tongue at their mistake. His eyes flickered white, a shallow pool of oily water reflecting his form.

They had shotguns and holy water and the Rituale Romanum memorized, but Dean wasn't about to watch Sam drink demon blood again so he could go dark Jedi on their asses. They had a fifty-fifty chance of getting out of this on their own power. Actually, Sam was guaranteed, since they wouldn't kill him, but the demons would bring him to Lucifer, right after they went to town tearing Dean apart while Sam struggled and raged, finally broke, attacked one, drank the blood, and inched closer to losing himself again.

Dean had his hand on the cell phone.

"Finally," Sam muttered, shotgun to his shoulder. "Can we call Cas _now_?"

Dean hit the speed-dial button.

"Hello?"

"Cas, it's Dean, we're in trou--"

Castiel stood right next to Dean. He'd shaved, but his hair stuck up in weird swirls, making him look like he'd just been doing something dangerous or questionable, although his coat and suit looked clean.

"That was fast," Dean said. The demons stirred, eyeing Castiel with a mix of arrogance and wariness.

"I rode the sine wave of the cell phone signal." His head tilted slightly. "You do not need to speak to tell me where you are any more."

"Oh."

"Hi, Cas," said Sam.

"Hello, Sam."

Castiel put two fingers to Dean's forehead and Sam's. The world spun and then they were in an alley in the same neighborhood as their motel.

"That was a demon named Verrine," Castiel told them. "He causes people to be impatient, inciting them to violence. Why do you keep staring at me, Dean?"

Having Castiel in front of him now, some of the unease he'd felt for the past week subsided. "I'm not staring at you."

"I believe that you are."

Beside him, Dean heard Sam snicker. It was definitely a snicker. "You have something you want to add, poindexter?"

"Nope," said Sam.

"I was not staring," said Dean.

* * *

Castiel had a plan. So while Dean brought in the jug of holy water they kept in the trunk and went to work in the bathroom filling up half a dozen small bottles and his favorite silver flask, Castiel showed Sam how to draw the sigils they needed. The bathroom door was open so Dean could see them both, Sam with his shoulders hunched over the sheets of paper where he copied the markings Castiel had drawn for him in a row across the page, Castiel standing at his left, palms against the table, frowning as he looked down, his gaze on Sam's hand.

"No, like this." Castiel took Sam's fingers and guided them.

"But you drew it the other way last time." Sam sounded exactly the way he had when he was twelve and his homework was frustrating him.

"That was for the other set of markings." Castiel let go and straightened his back. "For this one it needs to be in the reverse."

"You could've, y'know, mentioned that." Sam finished the mark, then threw down his pencil and slouched in his chair.

Dean screwed the cap back on the jug and gathered up the bottles of holy water, cradling them against his stomach. "Can I ask a stupid question?" He said, and they both looked up as he walked towards the table. "Why're we going through all this with the sigils? Why not a frontal assault, Cas gives the minions the hand o' doom, while Sam and I exorcise the fucker?"

Fingering the edge of the pages, Sam glanced up at Castiel, whose face had gone very blank, not that this was unusual. More blank than normal, though. It was impossible to tell what the guy was thinking most of the time anyway, except when he telegraphed in unexpected ways. The funniest part was how really suck ass or spectacular Castiel would probably be at poker. They should try playing with him sometime, see what happened.

"Because I can't," Castiel said, the words coming out of him sharp as that angel sword he used, but too rough to be as cold.

Dean dropped the bottles onto his bed. It had become too difficult to hold them, his grip faltering. "Can't what?"

"For some time now, I have been unable to drive demons from their human host." He glanced down at his hand, flexed it into a fist and opened it again.

Dean thought Castiel's hand would probably be longer than his, if they stood palm-to-palm, even if Dean was much taller. He moved closer to Cas, his stomach tightening, with the shift of something falling away beneath his feet. It took him by surprise, since he hadn't realized until now how much he'd been standing on it.

"So, the anti-demon mojo, it's malfunctioning?" Dean stopped next to Sam's chair. Sam sat up, shoulders rigid, as they both faced Castiel.

Castiel seemed cornered, that was the only word for it, his stance almost a battle-ready one, arms at his sides, his shoulders tucked. "Not malfunctioning. Faded. Since I'm cut off from the host of heaven, my powers are diminished. That's one that has gone completely."

"We'll do your plan, then," Sam said quietly. "It's okay, Cas."

"Yeah," said Dean, but he felt like someone else was speaking. "Not like we aren't already completely screwed. What's one more screwed on top of the rest?" Castiel met Dean's gaze, and he must've seen it in Dean's face, what Dean was trying to choke down, because he looked away fast.

"Dean," Sam said, and Dean knew that tone. It was a reprimand, Sam being the compassionate one and trying to take the edge off his brother.

"He could've told us sooner," Dean said. "We're in a war, and he didn't think to mention he was out of ammo?"

"He's told us now, and he's given us another way to beat this demon." The corner of Sam's mouth quirked with a wry, self-mocking twist. "Like you said, what's one more screwed on top of the rest? I screwed us good already and then some."

"Yeah, well, so did I." Dean knew everything he'd said to Sam, and he'd meant it at the time, and probably didn't regret it too much if he was being honest, but he felt a flash of irritation at Sam's eagerness to play the scapegoat now. "First seal," he said, the word coming out harsh. "Broke in thirty, remember?"

Castiel made a noise, then, it might've been a curse under his breath, but it was too broken to be only that, and Dean couldn't quite catch it. When he turned towards him, Castiel's expression, raw and hurt, sent Dean plunging into deep water without noticing he'd even gone off the shoreline.

"I opened the panic room door," Castiel said. "I let Sam out to go to Lilith."

There was a bitter flavor at the back of Dean's mouth as his cheeseburger lunch threatened to assert itself, even though he felt a sick sense of inevitability. He'd assumed Ruby, thought maybe it'd been Sam and his jury-rigged TK, and if it hadn't been Ruby and it hadn't been Sam, then it could've been Castiel. Dean had worked all that out in his head a few dozen times, while brushing his teeth, drifting off to sleep, driving on dark highways while Sam slept next to him on the passenger side and there was nothing else to do but think and he couldn't turn the music up to drown it out because it would wake Sam.

"We all made mistakes," Sam said. He looked pale, and swallowed hard, but his voice was steady. He looked up at Dean. "Dean? Say something."

But Dean couldn't.

Between one breath to the next, Castiel disappeared. Dean felt a wind brush past him.

"Typical," Dean muttered.

He noticed how Sam's shoulders slumped as he bent his head and went back to work over the sigils, the tightness in his expression.

* * *

It hurt less than finding out Sam was drinking demon blood after he'd sworn to Dean -- _sworn_ \-- that he would stop, and it hurt less than knowing Sam had been changing himself into something else on purpose.

Castiel wasn't Sam, he wasn't the one thing Dean had always believed wouldn't fall apart on him. Even when Sam had left for Stanford, Dean had felt that solidity, stretched to its limits but present, where all he'd had to do was call and say he needed help and Sam might leave his new life, drawn back to Dean even if Sam didn't want to, which was why Dean had never called, and never asked. Not until Dad had vanished.

It hurt less in the way that getting his ribs cracked hurt less than a gunshot wound.

An hour and a half after Castiel disappeared, Dean went out to get coffee and pie from the bakery around the corner from the motel, which was a cheap walk-up with half the lightbulbs in its sign broken, so the blue glow of it was feeble in the dusk. The sky burned red beyond the town's low buildings.

Holding a cardboard tray with two large cups and two plastic holders containing lemon meringue, Dean let out a yell when Castiel appeared right in his path.

"Jesus H. Christ, you could warn a guy," Dean snapped, the tray tipping as he nearly lost his grip on it.

"I shouldn't have left like that," Castiel said.

He looked definitely rumpled this time, hair messy, tie loose, leaving his neck exposed. Dean caught a faint scent of ocean coming off him, and wondered where he'd been -- looking for God on the coast of Maine? Coney Island? The Caribbean? Dean felt relief settle into his stomach, and suddenly he wanted more than just lemon meringue pie for dinner.

"Yeah, you shouldn't have," Dean said. He couldn't manage to work any fury into his voice, although along with the relief, the annoyance lingered -- and annoyance at himself, for minding this much, for the realization that he worried that Castiel might do his magic vanishing act one time and be unable to return -- or worse, choose not to.

Cars rushed by them as they faced each other, standing on the grass at the edge of a parking lot. The bus stop a few steps away from them was a small shed painted a weary-looking green, a big blue and white poster covering one side. It was an ad for an airline -- it made Dean think of eyes flashing black and a plane cabin filled with screams.

The sky grew darker and the red burn at the horizon deeper. Castiel's face twitched, almost a grimace, strikingly human. "There is something else I haven't told you."

"Oh, shit, Cas." Dean took a few agitated paces towards the bus stop, then turned back. "What now?"

Castiel looked down, then slowly raised his head to meet Dean's gaze full-on, and the urge to pace knocked right out of him when he saw how lost Castiel's expression was. "My hunger, my craving for meat, I said it was the vessel's." He smoothed his hands over the front of his shirt. "It was easier for me to think of it that way -- to assign it to this body. I didn't intend to lie. But that hunger, it was my own." Castiel turned away, bit his lower lip, and again Dean was caught by how human and vulnerable that looked. "Jimmy Novak isn't in here. At least, I can't sense him, and before, I was always aware of him. Always." His hesitated. "He's been gone since the archangel destroyed this body and it was put back together."

"I..." Dean stopped. What exactly could you say, in a situation like this? He thought of Jimmy never getting to go home to his family. "I'm sorry," Dean said.

"I regret what I cost Jimmy," Castiel said. He looked up at the sky, like he might be praying, then lowered his head and turned back to Dean. "These impulses -- these human impulses I've been feeling, have all been mine." His mouth twisted a little, but Dean couldn't tell the flavor of the edge in his voice, whether it was disgust or merely unhappiness. "I'm alone in here. It's _terrifying._ "

His voice had gone harsh and Dean heard a note in it that made him look a little closer. Castiel's fingers twitched and grabbed convulsively at the edges of his coat.

Dean knew that kind of gesture. If he wasn't gripping the fabric, if Castiel wasn't an angel, his hands might've been shaking.

"Hey, Cas." He took a step closer. "You aren't alone, okay?"

"I was weak," Castiel said. "When you needed me."

Dean's mouth had gone dry. He swallowed a few times, tried to say a protest, but Castiel was already pushing onward with this, like now that he'd decided on this, he was going to have it his way.

"In heaven, I let their torture break and reshape me," he said, and the self-loathing in his voice made Dean's throat ache. "I should've fought harder."

Dean had broken in thirty, opened the first seal, should've fought harder. He'd failed to get to Sam in time, not the man his father hoped he'd be, not what Castiel'd thought he was, not enough to keep Sam from going over a cliff, couldn't get Jo and Ellen safe through the battle, hollowed out inside and not even worth a snack to a Horseman. He wanted to tell Castiel all that.

"I'm not as strong as Anna was," Castiel went on. "I'm not as strong as you."

"Excuse me?" The train of Dean's thought skittered off as if Castiel had scratched a needle across a record.

"Time works differently in heaven, but as you would measure it, I was tortured for a few weeks. Anna for decades. You withstood thirty years in Hell before you cracked."

"So, now you want to hold a pissing contest now to see who can withstand torture the best? What does the winner get, a toaster?"

Castiel's head tilted and he looked right into Dean, through him, in that uncanny way he had. "You always joke about things like this. Why?" It sounded as if Castiel didn't expect an answer to that; it was merely the register of a complaint.

Dean said, his voice low, "What do they do to you, in heaven?"

Castiel closed his eyes and Dean knew that was the only answer he was ever going to get. When Castiel squeezed his eyes shut tighter, reached out to press his hand against the wall of the bus stop, Dean put the coffee and pie down on the bench. The shake in Castiel's body was slight enough you wouldn't see it unless you were really looking.

Dean was looking.

Angels didn't sleep as far as Dean knew. So they probably didn't dream, or have nightmares, but they seemed to have good memories, at least Castiel did, and maybe Castiel felt the quick flash of phantom pain firing through his mind, pushing everything else out, until the reality of the here and now seemed like the memory.

"Hey," Dean said, and put his hand on Castiel's shoulder. He felt the tension and the tremble in it. "You don't have to...anyone would..." He couldn't find words, because he already knew there weren't any that were right. So Dean pulled at Castiel's shoulder, against the resistance of wiry muscle beneath the layers of fabric until Castiel turned and then tucked his head down as if against a wind, fisting his hands around the edges of Dean's army jacket. He had no idea if Castiel would allow this or even wanted it, but Dean had no idea what else to do and he wasn't going to do nothing. So he put his arms around him, and gripped him tight.

After a moment the resistance gave and Castiel sagged against him. He released his grip on Dean's jacket and his arms went around him, palms hard against his back, fingers digging in as if he'd go flying off into nothingness without Dean to grab onto. The smell of the ocean grew stronger, it was in Castiel's hair, in his clothes.

For a moment, Dean held on, letting himself give this comfort. It struck him how well Castiel fitted into the hollows of Dean's body, before he cleared his throat and Castiel stepped back. Dean abruptly noticed how cold the evening was.

"Thank you." Castiel inclined his head, standing stiffly, a gesture almost ridiculous in its formality. It made Dean think of a character in an old Kurosawa film. The seconds ticked by, and Dean started to squirm inwardly at the awkwardness. "That was much pleasanter than Cupid's handshake," Castiel said, the crease between his eyes deepening, his mouth moving into a shape that might've been a tiny small or a tiny frown. His hands had stopped shaking.

Dean thought of explaining why Castiel shouldn't be _thanking_ him for a hug, but instead he picked up the coffee and pie. When he started walking back towards the motel, Castiel fell into stride with him, as if he'd always been there.

* * *

"Jimmy Novak is gone," Castiel told Sam, after they'd eaten the pie and drank half the coffee.

Sam dropped his pencil. "Gone? As in...gone? When?"

"Since the archangel destroyed this body and I was put back together."

"Wow," said Sam. "I mean, is he dead, did his soul go to heaven?"

"I believe he is at peace, yes." Castiel fiddled with a button on his coat.

There was a pause. Sam rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. "Poor Jimmy," he said, then got to his feet to face Castiel. "I don't know what to say." He added softly, voice full of concern, "Are you...?"

"It's difficult," Castiel said.

Dean leaned against the dresser and folded his arms against the sense of loss that soaked into the air.

"I'm very sorry about the panic room door, Sam." Castiel put his hand on Sam's shoulder carefully, as if he wasn't sure if Sam would accept it.

Sam looked startled, glancing down at the hand on his shoulder. Then he nodded.

They got back to work.

* * *

The trap Castiel designed for Verrine worked, the web of devil's traps and Enochian symbols snaring the demon at the center like a spider, with his minions caught around him, unable to move.

Dean heard Castiel's voice chanting, low and harsh, under the shrieks of the demons. Then he and Sam started the Rituale Romanum in unison. They exorcised the first demon, then moved on to the next. After a while, Dean felt a strange, fierce ache of joy in his chest and when he grinned at Sam as they recited the ritual for the sixth time, Sam grinned back around the Latin syllables. It'd been a while since he'd felt this kind of rush about his work, and better, another reminder that the old rhythms with Sam were still there. Dean could still give him an oblique hand signal and Sam got it immediately, or even do it with nothing but a quirked eyebrow. Hearing Castiel's voice, doing a different ritual with words shaped another way, curling in and around his own and Sam's, made Dean think that maybe they weren't completely screwed after all.

Verrine snarled at them, lunged against the boundaries of the devil's trap, and then began to explain how he was going to cut out Dean's tongue first, then slice open his chest and pull out his ribs, before summoning the hellhounds. Dean felt oddly detached from it, as if these were plans for some other guy named Dean, and besides -- he'd heard it all before, he'd heard worse. Demons were posturing assholes.

Not that Verrine couldn't make good on the threats. Dean pushed the thought away.

Sam's jaw tightened with fury. He moved forward like he wanted to jump into the trap and strangle the demon personally, while Castiel fixed Verrine with a flat, impassive stare that made the tips of Dean's fingers go cold. He knew by now what that kind of impassive on Castiel's face meant.

He and Sam recited the ritual, drove the demon from the host in a streaming cloud that curled up into the darkness of the warehouse.

They'd let the demons escape, but the hosts, all thirteen of them, were alive. They could go back to brothers, sisters, children, significant others, friends, jobs.

Afterwards, the three of them sat in a smoky barbeque place eating ribs and fries and drinking beer. Even Castiel ate and drank, and while nothing seemed to get him drunk (much as Dean tried, ordering him random drinks on the menu to see what they would do to him), Castiel announced that he liked the taste of barbecue very much, which Sam seemed to find hilarious for some reason. He laughed, big broad smile that Dean hadn't seen in a long time, and Castiel's lips twitched.

Dean watched Castiel lick sauce off his fingers and remembered the push of that mouth over his in the dream. No, not Castiel's mouth, Michael-not-Castiel's. He reached for his water and took a few deep gulps. He wanted to know, right now, what Castiel-who-was-Castiel might taste like with barbecue sauce on his lips.

He became aware that Sam had stopped laughing, and watched him with a raised eyebrow, his mouth half-open like he was going to say something snarky any second now.

"Do I have food upon my face?" Castiel asked, licking at the corners of his mouth, and Dean's cock twitched in his jeans.

That set Sam off again. He let out a whoop as Castiel wiped his face with a napkin. Dean glared at Sam across the table, but that only made Sam laugh harder.

* * *

In Baltimore, he and Sam posed as FBI agents to get a look at four dead bodies in the morgue. They each had the same tiny mark on them, in different places -- one at the wrist, one at the ankle, one at the base of the neck, one over the heart.

"It's definitely Enochian," Sam said, holding his cell phone in his latex glove-covered hand. "I've looked at enough of it." He called Castiel this time. The look on Sam's face when he turned around and found Castiel had popped in behind him before Sam could say a word was one of the funniest things Dean had seen in a while.

Castiel gave Dean a quick glance in a way that made Dean want to stand still to let him check whatever he was looking for. For a moment it felt like Cas was verifying that Dean was intact and accounted for. Then he peered intently at the ankle of the first corpse. For about thirty seconds, he said nothing, only studied the mark. Then he raised his head and looked at Sam.

"You're right, it's Enochian. I know what the symbol signifies, in terms of its meaning, but not why it's been used here."

An hour and a pizza later, Sam and Castiel were still arguing over the possible reasons for the mark. Dean noticed that Castiel ate two slices of pizza, eating almost absently, as if too busy debating obscure theological lore with Sam to notice what else he was doing.

Dean finally put on his headphones to block out the debate and sat on his bed with his back against the headboard, boots on, as he finished his third slice.

He kept staring at Castiel. Definitely, it was staring, he kept trying not to, and it kept happening. It was like there were details he already knew were there, but hadn't really looked at before. The way his hair stuck up in lines slanted in every direction, that was something Dean thought maybe no comb could fix, and maybe Cas liked it that way. He had an image of Castiel running his fingers through his hair to make it do that, but that didn't seem right. It seemed like something that just _happened_. He caught the way Castiel's face shut down tight when he was annoyed and losing an argument, made his expression go blank. Long thin fingers. Cas didn't talk much with his hands, but he jabbed his index finger down hard on the page of the notebook open between him and Sam on the table.

Sam made a placating gesture, holding up both hands, and Dean saw him mouth something like, wait a second, before he walked towards the door.

Pulling the earbuds out, cutting off the sound of the harmonica in "Bring It On Home," Dean sat up. "What's going on?"

"I want more coffee. And there's a book in the trunk I need to show to Cas," Sam said. "I'll be back in a little while." Then he walked out, the door shutting behind him firmly enough Dean knew Sam was annoyed, but not angry. Probably wanted time to walk and think, worry the puzzle alone in his own headspace.

"We any closer to figuring out what's going on?" Dean sat at the foot of the bed, leaning his elbows on his knees.

"No." Castiel seemed fascinated with the empty pizza box all of a sudden, running his finger along the rough edge of the corrugation. He pressed the pad of his finger against the cardboard, picking up a piece of cheese, and put his finger to the tip of his tongue.

Dean coughed and sat up. "I, uh..." Damn, this was awkward. "I had this dream a few weeks back."

Castiel's head went up, a sharp motion that made Dean think of a bird of prey.

"It was Michael, making a guest appearance in my head," Dean blurted out.

Castiel made a small sound, distress or annoyance or both. He came to stand over Dean. "What did he say to you?"

"He wanted to get another go at persuading me." Dean caught his hands between his knees, hunching his shoulders as he looked up. "I was real close, Cas."

"You were tempted." He sat down beside Dean, Cas's shoulder almost, not quite, touching his.

"Feeling all..." Dean swallowed. "Feeling all hollow inside, for months, and so godamned tired and when you sent us back to save Mom and Dad, I saw Michael and he told me he'd see to it I'd be okay if I agreed. He wouldn't fry my brain, he'd fix me afterwards. And I thought...how bad would it be to just say _yes_?" Dean shrugged. "To kill Lucifer, to save Sam from that, to save everyone."

"You doubt your brother's ability to refuse Lucifer?" Castiel turned towards Dean, his voice holding a melancholy note of disappointed surprise. Maybe it wasn't that Castiel had no doubts about Sam, but he seemed sorry to believe Dean did.

"No. No, of course not." Dean got to his feet and started to pace, from the table, towards the door, and back again. He felt Castiel's gaze following him. "But if I was ready to give in to Michael, then maybe Sam would...it's not Sam I'm doubting. It's this huge, horrible mess we made. We all made, shit that went on before Sam and I were even born and it's too much, y'know? It's too fucking much."

As Dean walked by Castiel for the fourth time, Castiel stood up smoothly and blocked Dean's path. Dean jerked to a halt.

"There's something else bothering you about Michael's visit," Castiel said, a flat statement.

He could step around Castiel, he could turn away, he could tell him no, that's it. He could go sit in the chair and put the headphones of his mp3 player back on.

"When Michael showed up dream walking in my head, he chose to look like someone I know. He..." Dean stared at Castiel's tie, the blue against the white shirt. He couldn't look at his face. "He used you."

Castiel stiffened, and Dean moved back a step. He had to or he wouldn't be able to finish this. "Michael said he'd protect you from heaven. He knew all kinds of shit about me. He knew that I...he used you, and I almost went for it. It wasn't you, but I almost went for it." None of this was coming out right -- sounded a little crazy. Castiel probably had no idea what he was even talking about and Dean would have to spell it out in horrible, embarrassing detail.

But Castiel took a step closer to Dean with a truly frightening air of purpose. "Do you mean because you have an interest in me that is carnal in nature?" Castiel asked, his voice carefully flat.

The heat rising into his face, Dean didn't draw back. He studied Castiel's features, looking for a vulnerability, because he needed to see one right then, or he needed the earth to open up right that hot second and suck him back down into Hell.

"Yeah," Dean said, his voice breaking like he was seventeen for crying out loud. "I mean, no, I mean, yes, but not only that. He knew that I'd care what happened to you."

Castiel's expression faltered, and changed. It pulled Dean's breath right out of his lungs, Castiel was so unguarded now, it was almost like spying to see it, and underneath stirred a strange, sharp flavor of joy.

"You said you wondered how bad would it be if you said _yes_." Castiel's fingers were on Dean's jaw now, his touch hot against Dean's skin, although Dean's impression had been that Castiel's hands tended to be cool. "I think it would be very bad indeed."

His lips brushed feather-light over Dean's, staying near the corner of Dean's mouth, while Dean's heart hammered in his chest, blood rushing in his ears.

Castiel turned away, went over to the table, and sat down. He drew one of Sam's notebooks towards him, studied it with shoulders hunched, head down.

Dean decided he'd better go get some donuts to have with the coffee.

* * *

The sound of bees was faint, soothing in the lazy heat as Dean stood on the porch. The farmhouse looked familiar, sunlight through the vine leaves, wood cracked and sagging, air smelling of leaves and honey. He gripped the support pillar, chipped paint sharp against his palm, drowsy and warm, sweat making his t-shirt stick to his lower back. Thirsty, he turned to look for the iced tea.

Castiel stood by the door in his suit and trenchcoat facing Castiel.

Even though both were the same height, same build, looked the same, one gave the impression of being heavier, more imposing, as he turned towards Dean. Dean had an impression of a dark, heavy shadow above his shoulders, spreading upwards to brush the underside of the porch roof. A hole let in a splash of sunlight, putting this other Castiel's face half in shadow and half in light.

The first Castiel only tensed, fists clenched, looking at Dean intently with warning bright in his expression. That was Castiel, _his_ Castiel, and Dean jerked towards him, but the other Castiel was in his way.

"You didn't listen to me, Dean," said the other Castiel, and now Dean saw his wings, broad, brilliant things, burning away their shadow, the feathers edged in quicksilver.

Dean shied back, and Michael put his hand on Castiel, the sleeve of his trenchcoat brushing against the fabric of Castiel's.

Where he touched, the coat began to burn, a hole eating down to the jacket, down to the white shirt, down to the skin. It spread outward, edged in fire, consuming Castiel, just like Michael's touch had consumed Anna, burned her body away.

* * *

Waking was like falling, a jolt that hurt down to his bones, his body soaked in sweat and his throat raw and aching. He sat up in the half-darkness, saw that Sam was also awake, propped up on one elbow in the other bed, staring at him.

"Dean?" he said, his voice rough from interrupted sleep.

"Bad dream." Dean fell back against the pillows.

"You...uh. You screamed Castiel's name."

Dean stared at the ceiling. It had to be an hour shy of dawn, given the grayed-out quality to the darkness.

"What happened?" Sam asked softly.

"Really bad dream," Dean said.

When Dean refused to say anything else, Sam lay back down. As Sam turned over, pulling the sheet up over his shoulders, Dean heard him mutter, "Dude, just call him."

* * *

They hunted a spirit haunting a camp during the off-season. It was nice, dealing with something traditional and nothing to do with the end of the world -- a few days of this and they'd be back to playing chase-the-devil. The ruins of a building about a mile off into the woods had sent the EMF meter squealing, confirming their suspicions about what was behind the reports of all the incidents.

They squatted in one of the cabins. The camp was otherwise empty -- the caretaker, a guy who knew a guy who knew a guy who knew Bobby and had called for help, lived in a cabin several miles down the dirt road.

In the cold hush right before dawn, Dean stepped outside, boards of the cabin porch rough against his bare feet, his jeans and white t-shirt probably not enough for the morning chill.

Dean rubbed his finger over the edges of the cell phone in his hand while he watched the mist shift and curl over the lake. He hadn't talked to Cas since the thing with the Enochian marks on the dead bodies -- they never did find out what it meant, which bugged the hell out of him.

Toes curling around the edge of the bottom step, Dean pushed the speed dial button and waited.

Castiel appeared immediately, looking up at Dean from the path in front of the cabin.

"Hello, Dean," Castiel said, and goosebumps rose along Dean's arms, it was so like the first dream with the farmhouse, except not, because the cadence of Castiel's voice was the right amount of clipped and tender this time, sounding exactly like himself. Dean wondered why he hadn't noticed the tender before, and how long it'd been there.

"Hey, Cas." He slid the cell phone into his pocket, swallowed a few times.

"Is there anything you need?" Castiel asked.

He stood and waited, while Dean stepped off the bottom step, placing himself right in front of Castiel.

All it took was another inch, a lean, and Dean's mouth was on Castiel's, his hands moving up to dig into his hair while Castiel kissed him hard back, cradling Dean's face in his hands. The need telegraphed off Castiel into him, the way he let Dean push his tongue hard into his mouth, demanding, and pushed back with equal force. He tasted right. Dean's hands slid down, trying to pull the trenchcoat off Castiel's shoulders.

He'd felt this kind of overwhelming want, this type of need, only a handful of times; and the image of a lot dark curly hair, the memory of a fierce determination to argue the world down until it became a better place returned to him, Sam away at Stanford and the loneliness eased with a pair of warm eyes and screaming fights that always ended in skin on skin, with sweaty limbs and laughter.

He faltered, his hands and mouth going still, and Castiel drew away.

It was interesting to see Castiel actually out of breath. His hair stuck up even more -- the work of Dean's fingers -- and his mouth was red with kissing and fuck, Dean needed to stop looking at him so damn much.

"C'mere," Dean said, his voice low, and reached out to grab Castiel's tie. He pulled Castiel against him. Cas's eyes had gone wide. He looked almost as nervous as he had in the brothel.

He fit his mouth over Castiel's again, going more slowly this time, and for a moment he remembered the first dream again, how his want had gone as soon as he'd kissed the Michael who looked like Cas. Now he was going up like a Roman candle. His fingers started loosening Castiel's tie until his collar was open at the neck. Dean moved his mouth down, lips brushing over the stubble on Castiel's jaw, until he put his tongue where he'd been wanting to put it for a while, in the hollow at the base of Castiel's throat, the spot usually hidden by his collar and tie. Castiel let out a noise that sounded an awful lot like a whimper, his fingers gripping Dean's bare lower arms, stroking the fine hairs. His body pushed hungrily against Dean's, and Dean felt how hard he was.

"Hang on a sec. Just. One second." Dean detached himself from Castiel's grip. "Don't..." He stumbled over a tree root. "Don't move, I'll be right back."

Dean felt like a complete idiot, he had no idea if Castiel even wanted that, but no way was Dean going into this situation unprepared. The Impala was only a few yards away. His hands shook as he opened the back door. Damn it. He found what he needed in his extra duffel bag and emerged from the car so hard now he was starting to ache.

He half expected the path in front of the cabin to be empty, but Castiel was standing where Dean had left him. He seemed pretty calm, arms hanging at his sides, with his rumpled hair, tie loose, and Dean felt a strange, sweet twist in his gut.

Dean kissed him again, then took his arm and pulled him towards another cabin about twenty yards from the one where Sam was still asleep. The sun had grown warmer against Dean's back, but when they stepped into the empty cabin, the chill folded around him. The shutters were down on all the windows. He opened one, fastening it with the hook, letting in sun and a glimpse of the lake. There were two beds, both covered with canvas drop-sheets. Dean tugged off the cover of the one nearest the door, and they sat down. The air smelled like cedar.

In the dim light, Castiel's eyes were a darker blue than usual, his pupils blown wide. He rested his palm against Dean's chest, and Dean didn't know quite what to do under that kind of gaze. It was too much. So he went to work tugging at the trenchcoat, pulling it over Castiel's shoulders, who maneuvered himself obligingly. The tie followed the coat to the floor, along with the suit jacket, and Dean started undoing the buttons of Castiel's shirt while Castiel kissed along Dean's jaw, tongue flicking against his skin until Dean could hardly see straight, let alone manage to undo buttons. The cabin's air still felt chilly, even with the shutter open, but it was warmer up next to Castiel's skin.

"So, can I ask you something?" Dean said. Castiel stopped kissing him. "Have you figured out how to clean the pipes?" Castiel gave him a puzzled frown. Dean went on, "Do the dew? Jack off?"

"You are referring to masturbation," Castiel said.

"So, have you?"

"Yes. This body has certain impulses that are growing more difficult to ignore. It was very easy to pleasure myself."

"Kind of a handy skill, isn't it?" Dean traced his hands down over Castiel's chest, over the amulet that had been a part of Dean for most of his life, learning the bumps of Castiel's ribcage, then the sharpness of his hip bones. His abdominal muscles twitched at Dean's touch. "Kind of takes the pressure off to know you've been doing that," he said, leaning in to kiss Castiel again. Castiel's tongue slid over Dean's, curious and eager.

Drawing away, Dean pulled off his t-shirt. While his face was buried against the cotton, Castiel's hands brushed against his chest. Dean reflexively startled, and the hands went away. Then he was free and the shirt dropped to land with the other clothes. "You can keep doing that," said Dean. "Actually, lower down would be good," and Castiel's fingers slid down his stomach, then worked frantically at the button and zipper of Dean's jeans, tugging the denim down with clumsy hands, his fingers fumbling to discover Dean's skin. Dean bit back a small moan when Castiel's hand curled around his cock. He undid the fastener of Castiel's pants, unzipping them, pulling Castiel's cock free of his boxers.

He stroked him and Castiel let out a choked, wordless sound, his forehead against Dean's shoulder. Dean's mouth found Castiel's again as they pushed against each other.

"You too, bub," Dean said, pausing to nod down at Castiel's shoes. "Fair's fair. Take it all off."

Cas raised his eyebrows, looking amused as Dean grinned. He thought Cas would untie his shoes in his usual deliberate way, maybe pause to line them up on the floor, neatly side by side. Instead Castiel kicked them off, movements sloppy, and he quickly pulled off his socks before he allowed Dean to completely remove his slacks and boxers.

For a moment Dean stopped, everything stopped, as he stared at Castiel's lean body, wiry muscle, slim hips and shoulders and legs.

"Cas..." the syllable breathed out of him before Dean could stop it.

"Yes?"

But Dean couldn't say it.

The salt taste of Castiel's skin was under his tongue, Castiel beneath his body, and Dean had to remind himself to take this slow even though he wanted to do this fast and hard. His need crashed through him, made him almost dizzy, and Dean knew he shouldn't want this much. It was dangerous to want this much.

He'd also noticed how Castiel seemed to want to touch him everywhere, would grab and stroke and explore, except where the hand-print scar spread like a raised tattoo over Dean's shoulder. Dean wanted to ask him, he wanted Castiel to touch it, shivered when he thought about his tongue sliding over that mark. Dean used to resent it. At first it had seemed like a brand -- now it was more like a signature. It didn't hurt, it was Castiel's; he'd created it when he'd formed Dean's body whole again.

It was easier to stop thinking, especially with Castiel's teeth and tongue teasing at Dean's left nipple. Dean's fingers gripped Castiel's thighs, pressed his torso against his legs, making him bend his knees.

"I want to fuck you," Dean said, and Castiel stopped what he was doing. His eyebrows rose. Then his lids fluttered closed as Dean traced his fingers along the inside of Castiel's thigh until he found his cock again. He thumbed the tip of it, slick and wet, and enjoyed the way Castiel whole body bucked in response. "I want to be inside you."

After a moment, Castiel said, "Yes." His hands curved over Dean's hips, fingers pushing into his skin, reddening it.

Dean shifted away, reaching down for his jeans, and got a condom and the lube out of the back pocket, before Castiel tugged him insistently close again. Dean pulled on the condom and worked lubricant over his fingers, the substance cold after being in the car overnight. He rubbed his hands together until it wasn't chilly to the touch anymore, then slid a finger into Castiel, who arched in response, his breath catching loud in his throat. Dean rubbed in more lube, worked his finger in further, and Castiel gasped as Dean found his prostate. Pushing another finger in, he teased and thrust, his other hand wrapped around Castiel's cock, stroking until Castiel's fingers twisted convulsively into the sheets, his back arching, body straining towards Dean.

When Dean pushed in, trying to go carefully, Castiel threw his head back, letting out a grunt.

The needy groan broke from Dean before he could stop it, Castiel tight and hot around him. He thrust in, clenching his jaw against the sounds that wanted to get out of him.

Castiel put his hand to the side of Dean's face, with a terrible tenderness that made Dean feel something had been let out of a box that maybe should've stayed hidden. He stilled for a moment as Castiel said, his voice rough, "I want to hear you say my name."

Dean gave his cock a few more hard strokes, making that stare crumble. Cas let out a long, shaky groan. Finding out he could make Castiel sound like that, could make him fall apart under his hand this way, was pretty fucking astounding.

"Castiel." Dean pushed in hard. "Castiel." He thrust in again. Cas could die or he could leave or he could betray him. Another thrust. "Castiel." Or maybe he would stay. Castiel arched his back, came into Dean's hand, shouting his name, and Dean went beyond thinking.

One more push and Dean lost it; everything whited out, only Castiel's skin beneath his fingers to ground him.

He slumped, the after-rush of pleasure and thrum of his own heartbeat settling into his skin as Castiel's arms closed tight around him. Cas tucked perfectly into the hollows of Dean's body, his legs sliding along Dean's. Dean put his mouth to Cas's collarbone, his tongue flicking out to taste the sweat, and yes, Castiel was sweating, which Dean didn't think he would do, although why not, since he'd bled often enough.

The sun struck warm against Dean's back, and Castiel felt hot everywhere their skin touched. They stayed like that for a time; Dean hardly knew what to do with the peace. Lately he'd only found it in certain kinds of dreams. The sound of bees tickled at the back of Dean's mind, a stir of unease.

He slid his hand down Castiel's body, finding him growing hard again, but for now Dean was content to let everything be. Castiel traced his fingers down along Dean's arm, then twined their fingers together. Dean kissed Cas's jaw and wondered at how he'd gone completely boneless against him, how relaxed his face was -- vulnerable.

Screw it. Dean wouldn't say yes to Michael. He'd felt sure of that for weeks now.

He wouldn't say yes to Michael, but he could say yes to this.

 

~end


End file.
